Argentine Beekeepers' Magazine

(Espacio Apícola, October 24th, 2024) As of November 28th, 2024, all honey exports to the European Union must include the identification of the establishment of origin and it must be duly registered in the list in accordance with article 127, section 3 "e", paragraphs ii and iii of Regulation 2017/625 of the EU, as indicated in the last Delegated Regulation signed on September 15th, 2023.

The information can be consulted on the EuLex site or in the specific summary for bee products that we published in Espacio Apícola 143, in Spanish last May.

ADULTERATION IN FOCUS

The main motivation for this measure is to control the quality of honey exported to the EU or substitutes that are sold as "honey" in a clearly fraudulent manner. The actions of the European Commission were reinforced last year through a report by the European Farmers' Organisation (COPA) and the European Agricultural Cooperatives (COGECA); this organisation, COPA-COGECA, published last year on March 23rd a report with an informative graphic of samples of honey imported into the EU, analysed with methodologies of the current regulations, where 46% of the total was suspected of fraud.

74% of 89 samples from China were suspected of adulteration, as well as 17.5% of those from Ukraine, 20.5% of those from Argentina, 27.5% of those from Mexico and 44.4% of the honey from Brazil.
Samples from other countries also showed very worrying data, although the number of samples analyzed would not be as representative: 93.3% of the samples from Türkiye were suspicious, the ten samples analyzed from the United Kingdom were suspicious, as well as 50% of the samples from Uruguay.

Although in all cases suspicions must be confirmed or discarded, analytical techniques are also questioned today for being insufficient. Even since its launch, Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) has raised doubts (see compendium of articles in Spanish in Espacio Apícola 131 - 2021) and today these suspicions seem to be confirmed by recent research carried out by the European Professional Beekeepers Association (EPBA) in Germany, based on Metagenomic DNA Analysis (MDA).

At the time of this note, Kaarel Krjutskov, CEO and manager of the CELVIA laboratory in Estonia, confirmed that 63% of the samples analyzed in another similar investigation initiated in August by the Finnish Beekeepers Association was adulterated honey. Ari Seppalla, former representative of Finnish beekeepers in the EPBA, told us via WhatsApp that they sent 25 samples to the metagenomics laboratory in Estonia, all the Finnish samples showed total authenticity, while among the imported samples they found more than 60% with varying degrees of adulteration. The laboratory is expected to publish a scientific paper with all the data. In addition, -Ari told us- within two weeks the EPBA has a meeting on the matter and they hope to have more information.

The EU measure that comes into force on November 28th is clearly part of the fight against fraud in the honey trade, although it does not seem to be sufficient in light of the complaint filed by the Association of European Professional Beekeepers (see note on this same site) who are promoting metagenomic DNA analysis for honey sold in the community.

Although it must be regulated and we do not know the details, it is expected to have a rigor similar to the PCQI (Preventive Controls Qualified Individual) program imposed by the FDA on some honey supplier countries for the United States and whose implementation and methodology we described in 2019 for the three levels of responsibility: Exporters, Middlemen and Beekeepers (see Espacio Apícola 124 - Spanish only). This rule is also aligned with the modification to the Honey Directive of the European Commission of last May which requires to mention on the label of the honey blend the country origin of the honeys in descending order according to its percentages. (see "The European Commission modifies the Honey Directive"- June 5th here).

For the last three or four decades, the conviction that honey from the grasslands of the "Pampa Húmeda" and other natural ecosystems of the southern country was mixed in the Old World with inferior quality honey has been common knowledge among Argentine beekeepers. Although the suspicion of adulteration of 20% of the honey samples from Argentina published by COPA-COGECA is worrying and must be resolved, the high percentages of adulterated or totally fraudulent products found in Europe, with the emergence on a large scale of non-traditional and mainly suspected suppliers, would be confirming that presumption of Argentine beekeepers.

Fernando Esteban